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Starting from scratch
- Thread starter dtrader85
- Start date
Quote from Vespasian:
Do NOT trade futures !
Especially the ES
They are the hardest thing to trade and should be left to only the most seasoned traders.
Start with stocks.
Join a prop firm and get trained properly
Agree, the ES is a bitch without question. I would just start with stocks that are "in play" buy strength, sell weakness. Basic but effective with disaprin.
Quote from dozu888:
This is very typical beginner mentality.
Let me give you a couple of cents, since I am in a good mood today.
" a few weeks" means nothing. paper trading means almost nothing.
'determination' and 'necessary work' means almost nothing as well. this is the reason most people on this forum are still endlessly struggling, hoping that someday they might get it.
there is NO short cut in trading... it will take years of observing the market to feel it's breath.
So, save your 7 grand. just trade 10-100 shares of anything... SPY, individual stocks, whatever, doesn't matter.
Notice I say 10-100 shares, you need to trade a size that is big enough for you to feel the emotion, and small enough not to hurt the account.
Now, go get a regular job, make your 35k/year salary.... then, at lunch break or at night, look at a bunch of charts.
SPY, QQQQ, EEM (and/or individual country ETFs, EWZ, EWC, EWA).
Ask yourself -
- How do they follow each other?
- Which is realatively stronger/weaker?
- what is the driving force of the current swing?
- what is the reaction to the last swing?
- is the current swing running out of steam?
- how strong / weak is the current reaction compared to the last swing?
- who are the players in this market? mutual funds, hedgies, individuals?
- what are bulls feeling at this moment? how would a bear feeling at this moment?
- what would happen if market makes the next move? how would bulls/bears react?
- and finally, what are you gonna do about it?
This looks overwhelming in the beginning, but with practice it becomes 2nd nature and you really only need 5 minutes a day to plan / execute your next move.
This is the best chance for a newbie to succeed. It requires some effort, but no need to over sweat it. You need to work it smart.. go with the flow as you identify the flow with a reasonable level of confidence.
You need to experience the swing cycles a few dozen times.. and a few years later you may just get the hang of it.
Looking at the P/L thread, I can't believe so many people throw away golden years of their working life, churning commission for the prop house, while making peanuts everyday... you might as well go flipping burgers. Don't be one of them.
A regular day job takes the pressure off trading, give you cushions when you screw up (inevitably during your early years). Heck, if you just average down during the last bear (by dollar cost averaging), you'd have done better than most of the ETers here by now... assuming you have a regular job to generate funds to do a crude method like DCA.
Trading is not difficult... it takes time, and the right approach, which means understanding of market participants, and participants emotions, and their likely course of actions. Most of the people take the wrong approach. They think they are onto something.... indicators, Gann, Fib, market profile, Elliot wave, blah blah. These so-called traders keep living in a stratosphere and will never succeed.. because all that stuff is just randomness. Don't fall into that trap.
Well put and excellent advice.
I was completely surprised to see all the help I received on these boards....
I definitely understand the differences between paper trading and real trading- slippage, commitments, etc
My stock market dreams started long ago as I was 12 sneaking around a trading room (possibly filling an order sheet or two =) )... From what I am reading, there is a HUGE chance that I will fail in my first year- something I understand and if I didn't realize I would be going into blindly.
I would like to minimize that risk as much as possible- I have enough backing to sit and paper trade/learn for at least the next two months without worrying about expenses. I have set up my trading computer in a spare room in my house and my expenses are minimal.
I have just finished my masters from the University of Florida and with the job market the way it is, the situation I am in, and my desire to make a go of this, I think I have what it takes to learn this.
Aside from prop firms, if anyone else has any suggestions for beginning (books, programs, etc) please mention them! Ideally, I would want a professional trader looking over my shoulder for a few months, but I doubt that is happening.
At the moment, I am reading Day Trading for Dummies, The Truth about Day Trading Stocks, and a few different news publications daily for the last few months.
Again, thanks everyone for the help so far...
I definitely understand the differences between paper trading and real trading- slippage, commitments, etc
My stock market dreams started long ago as I was 12 sneaking around a trading room (possibly filling an order sheet or two =) )... From what I am reading, there is a HUGE chance that I will fail in my first year- something I understand and if I didn't realize I would be going into blindly.
I would like to minimize that risk as much as possible- I have enough backing to sit and paper trade/learn for at least the next two months without worrying about expenses. I have set up my trading computer in a spare room in my house and my expenses are minimal.
I have just finished my masters from the University of Florida and with the job market the way it is, the situation I am in, and my desire to make a go of this, I think I have what it takes to learn this.
Aside from prop firms, if anyone else has any suggestions for beginning (books, programs, etc) please mention them! Ideally, I would want a professional trader looking over my shoulder for a few months, but I doubt that is happening.
At the moment, I am reading Day Trading for Dummies, The Truth about Day Trading Stocks, and a few different news publications daily for the last few months.
Again, thanks everyone for the help so far...
ok - you sound like serious enough not to be a troll.... so in order to save an unknown young man's future.. here it is...
go get a job! It's very urgent (especially you have a masters)... The longer the lapse after your graduation, the tougher will be to get a job.
The market is tough out there, but you still should do everything you can... send MANY resumes everyday (I am talking hundreds a day)... ask friends, relatives.. join social network sites, contact employers, recruiters.... do whatever you can.
So you have a couple of months without having to worry about expenses.... spend every minute of that 2 months looking for a job!
In life we always have priorities... right now, job searching is important, and urgent!
This trading thing, maybe it is important to you, but is far from urgent. The market will always be there.
If you truely have a master's degree, I hope you have enough common sense to see the picture here at this juncture of your life.... if you don't even have this bit of common sense, then forget about trading, you won't have a chance anyway.
Sounds harsh, but take the advice anyway. 5 years from now you'd be glad you did.
go get a job! It's very urgent (especially you have a masters)... The longer the lapse after your graduation, the tougher will be to get a job.
The market is tough out there, but you still should do everything you can... send MANY resumes everyday (I am talking hundreds a day)... ask friends, relatives.. join social network sites, contact employers, recruiters.... do whatever you can.
So you have a couple of months without having to worry about expenses.... spend every minute of that 2 months looking for a job!
In life we always have priorities... right now, job searching is important, and urgent!
This trading thing, maybe it is important to you, but is far from urgent. The market will always be there.
If you truely have a master's degree, I hope you have enough common sense to see the picture here at this juncture of your life.... if you don't even have this bit of common sense, then forget about trading, you won't have a chance anyway.
Sounds harsh, but take the advice anyway. 5 years from now you'd be glad you did.
2 months is not even close to enough time. You either need another income source for at least 2 YEARS or a situation in which someone is helping you out financially (parents?).
You will see just how fast 2 months will fly by, and with the enormous amount of info needed to learn to trade successfully, you'll find that 2 months wont even scratch the surface.
You will see just how fast 2 months will fly by, and with the enormous amount of info needed to learn to trade successfully, you'll find that 2 months wont even scratch the surface.
Quote from dtrader85:
I would like to minimize that risk as much as possible- I have enough backing to sit and paper trade/learn for at least the next two months without worrying about expenses.
I like this post because it gives you a good clue about how many losers there are on ET.
Only losers would tell a new trader to quit, cause they themselves are losers.
My advice to you is to have 10k-20k to start day trading ES. 7k is to shallow, if you are trading for 500-1k a day, a couple bad days and you will not have the will power to recover, u need more ammo. Then trade 2 lots, 1 lots are pointless because you will never be able to learn how to position size i.e. adding to winners, and dumping losers.
Ideally, you will want to be able to trade 2-4 ES contracts as a max position, then just learn how to add on to winners correctly and dump losers. If you are taking 2-4pt losses, your winners should be 2-4pt or more. Add on to a position when you have a 4pt winner and it comes back to a 2pt, then add on if you think the trend will continue.
You will become better over time, just start small and be in it for the long run. GL newbie
Only losers would tell a new trader to quit, cause they themselves are losers.
My advice to you is to have 10k-20k to start day trading ES. 7k is to shallow, if you are trading for 500-1k a day, a couple bad days and you will not have the will power to recover, u need more ammo. Then trade 2 lots, 1 lots are pointless because you will never be able to learn how to position size i.e. adding to winners, and dumping losers.
Ideally, you will want to be able to trade 2-4 ES contracts as a max position, then just learn how to add on to winners correctly and dump losers. If you are taking 2-4pt losses, your winners should be 2-4pt or more. Add on to a position when you have a 4pt winner and it comes back to a 2pt, then add on if you think the trend will continue.
You will become better over time, just start small and be in it for the long run. GL newbie
Quote from Uncle_Ho:
I like this post because it gives you a good clue about how many losers there are on ET.
Only losers would tell a new trader to quit, cause they themselves are losers.
My advice to you is to have 10k-20k to start day trading ES. 7k is to shallow, if you are trading for 500-1k a day, a couple bad days and you will not have the will power to recover, u need more ammo. Then trade 2 lots, 1 lots are pointless because you will never be able to learn how to position size i.e. adding to winners, and dumping losers.
Ideally, you will want to be able to trade 2-4 ES contracts as a max position, then just learn how to add on to winners correctly and dump losers. If you are taking 2-4pt losses, your winners should be 2-4pt or more. Add on to a position when you have a 4pt winner and it comes back to a 2pt, then add on if you think the trend will continue.
You will become better over time, just start small and be in it for the long run. GL newbie
To the newbie - be careful about 'advice' like this..... refer to my first post... a 'stratosphere trader' may think he is a 'winner', while fooled by randomness.
To the poster - if you have a little common sense, you see this 'advice' from you offers no value to the newbie, and can only have detrimental effect on his future.